Bright future

If you live in Paddington, chances are you love terrace houses. They do have their challenges, however, especially for growing families in need of more space. But there are possibilities for beautiful results, if you know how.

This east-facing terrace is positioned on a corner, facing north on its longest side. When Samantha Birtles, founder and director of design studio SE DÉA first saw it, the house was less than inspiring.

“It had lots of small rooms, tall and narrow openings with traditional proportions,” she says.

“The front two rooms had a clear scale but as you moved to the back, the rooms got smaller and smaller and the ceilings got lower and lower. Then there was a tiny little kitchen that you’d expect in a one-bedroom apartment and there was no sense of a courtyard at the back.”

Although there was a small lane on the northern boundary, there was no real connection to it, further adding to a sense of dark, poky rooms to the rear.

“One of the main intentions was to open up the whole ground floor and bring the natural light in and capitalise on that northern light,” Birtles says.

With no space to go up or out, the idea was to reconfigure the existing ground floor plan to make it feel more spacious without adding to the footprint. The house also needed to become more workable for the growing family — which included a second child born during the nine-month build — with better flow and functionality between rooms.

Given the front room already enjoyed 3m high ceilings, attention was focused on the back of the house, with plans for a built-in dining nook, leading on to a kitchen with an island bench, followed by a second lounge area overlooking the courtyard garden. Birtles says it was obvious from the start that opening the new kitchen to the northern side with stacker doors would be a game changer.

“Prior to our arrival it was just a set of French doors and that side courtyard was more of a side passage,” she says. “Because we had that corner site (and there were no neighbours), we knew we could build back to the boundary. We added about 4sq m but it made all the difference in terms of reprogramming the space.”

To give the kitchen and lounge space more head room, the back of the house was demolished. This necessitated propping up the upper floor, where the three bedrooms and bathroom are located, while construction was completed.

“The kitchen was a narrow space and it was quite difficult to fit a normal island bench where you could have all the operational requirements,” Birtles says. “We carved out that niche to give them that functionality.”

At the front of the house, Birtles partially opened the wall between the original living room and hallway, making it feel larger, and created the option of closing it off from the kitchen by creating an archway with glass-panelled French doors.

“When there’s someone in the rear living space, if they want to have their own space, they can use that front room as a breakout space,” she says. “The rest of the house is an open plan layout but we wanted to keep that separate.”

At the rear, large French doors open on to the newly created courtyard with curved built-in seat and sandstone tiles from Eco Outdoor broken up and laid in a crazy paving pattern. Discreet blinds and semi-sheer curtains help manage the afternoon sun coming in from the west.

Upstairs, Birtles designed a Juliet balcony off the new nursery, in keeping with the rest of the terraces in the row.

Carefully crafted joinery has played a critical part in the success of this build, providing for more efficient built-in seating as well as some much-needed storage. This has been squeezed in wherever practical, including in the attic retreat, where head height is limited.

“You walk up a hidden set of stairs to a smaller space with a dormer window,” says Birtles. “It has been designed as a playroom or a media room so where the roof slopes and you can’t get head height, there are cupboards along all sides.”

The warm palette of whites, creams and neutral wood tones used throughout was a quiet nod to the owner’s feminine aesthetic.

“She’s a florist and she loves pink so she wanted to create something to reflect her personality but something that would still be subtle and pared back,” Birtles says.

NORFOLK HOUSE

Interior designer: SE DÉA

Builder: Robert Plumb Fix

Photography: Sean Fennessy